Frances Coleman: Can't we just say 'no' to prejudice?

Now that I’ve got your attention, I’ll say it again: We have got to stop this — "this" being the alarming rise of anti-Muslim sentiment in our country.

Based on fear, suspicion and ignorance, it is the very sort of religious bigotry that we decry when it flares in other parts of the world — Northern Ireland, for instance, and the Middle East.

This is not who we Americans are, and it is not what our great nation is about.

Religious bigotry represents everything we say we oppose and everything our ancestors came here to escape.

Yet as we approach Saturday’s ninth anniversary of 9/11, the Internet is thick with e-mails about the dangers of Islam.

A Christian congregation in Gainesville, Fla., is preparing to hold a public Quran-burning, and some Muslim congregations around the country are conferring with the FBI about beefing up security at their mosques.

Anti-Islam protesters are even threatening to disrupt the annual 9/11 observances in New York.

The longer we go without saying "enough" to those who are fomenting intolerance, the more we compromise our stated commitment to religious freedom. And, too, the more we encourage a nasty backlash among Muslims.

We have been down this road before in the United States, and it has always been an ugly trip.

Other times our hate has been based on religious beliefs — Jews, for example, and Catholics.

From the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 to the Jim Crow laws of the mid-20th century, from "No Irish Need Apply" to World War II internment camps, we’ve always emerged from such eras ashamed of ourselves and vowing not to let history repeat itself.

Yet here we are, awash in a new and frightening anti-Muslim sentiment.

Will we let our fear of terrorists, whose ranks indisputably include radical Islamic groups, convince us that there are no good Muslims, no good followers of Muhammad, no good worshipers of Allah?

When did we lose our ability to distinguish between radicalism and religion?

Americans will never forget that day nine years ago when evil fanatics killed 3,000 people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. Indeed, since then we have fought terrorism at home and around the world, and will continue to do so.

In the process, however, we cannot afford to confuse fanaticism and faith, lest we find ourselves heading back down the road to intolerance.

Whether we’re on the right or on the left, Republican or Democrat, black or white, Catholic, Protestant, Jew, Muslim or atheist — we are all Americans.

May we remain too strong, too smart and too courageous to fall prey to our prejudices.